As the number and type of devices capable of rendering video increases, broadcast and internet protocol video transmission systems must be adapted to provide video content to the devices. Video rendering devices may range from large screen home entertainment systems to handheld portable devices, while video transmission systems encompass terrestrial broadcast, cable, wireline, and various wireless systems. To accommodate the breadth of video rendering devices, the video transmission systems transcode video content to various resolutions, frame rates, and/or bitrates in accordance with carrier bandwidth and video coding standards supported by the rendering devices. Examples of available video coding standards include MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4 part 2 standardized by the International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”), H.261 and H.263 standardized by the International Telecommunications Union (“ITU”), and H.264, also known as Advanced Video Coding (“AVC”) or MPEG-4 part 10 standardized jointly by both ISO and ITU. The substantial number of video standards, and the widely varying capabilities of video rendering devices, make techniques for efficiently transcoding and transferring video and related information desirable.